I'm sick of the WoW clones.

At this satge, I cant possibly give even rough estimate for that

I used to think that was just incompetence, and that Paragon Studios had managed to hire the only good animators - but with the amount of MMOs that are now around that use jerky trash anmation moves, I think it must actually be a style choice that developers make for some reason.

Yeah, maybe so. I mean, smooth animations are not uncommon in single-player and console games, so I suppose it may be an MMO netcode limitation thing. CoH seems to have traded a number of things graphically for unmatched smoothness of character movement and exceptional physics. Perhaps there is a similar trade-off in animations (that is, the more resources you use in smoothing animations, the more you have to give something up somewhere else).

Of course herky-jerky movement is only one way in which a combat animation can suck. Some animations depict movements and techniques that are just cringeworthy, especially to someone who might be familiar with the weapons or fighting styles depicted.

I'm going to rep yo- Oh right.

...Want a cookie?...Left over pumpkin pie?

It's a problem in every creative business where there is a large upfront cost with hope that you will make money on it once it's out. TV, movies, music and video games.

So what most everyone does is use as a template whatever currently successful property in hope that'll improve your odds at making money. Harry Potter - Percy Jackson, City of Ember, Golden Compass, Narnia; Twilight saga - Hunger Games, I am Number 4, Vampire Diaries; Lost - Alcatraz, Revolution, Terra Nova, Journeyman, Flash Forward; Avatar - every movie that was forced into 3D since it. Police dramas, hospital dramas, lawyer dramas, dysfunctional family sitcoms, group of friends sitcoms, reality talent shows ... the examples are simply too numerous.

It's simple, the people who are willing to invest money into a new creative venture are a superstitious cowardly lot who feel better if what's being made is nearly a carbon copy of what is already successful so that's what they invest in. That's also why you are seeing development teams going to crowd funding for game genre's that aren't currently in fashion or sequels to well received but niche games.

Criminals?

That is what I viewed as the reason many aim for the WoW model.
It used to be focus on EverQuest and the market was filled with EverQuest clones but of course, most didnt make it. Some then were also innovative for their time, as much as COX i innovative for it's time, but still faded into fuzzy memory if remembered at all. Then along came WoW and people flocked.

My take on it.
So naturally buisness tried to recreate that magic as they too want some numbers in the millions.

Still my take on it:

Just like console games and FPS. It took a very popular game in the FPS genre and game makers change their buisness model to get some of that money. At one point in time side scroll 2d games was the model, after Super Mario on Nintendo, then many games followed suit in the 2d side scroll game. Then it was 3d models and games like Mortal Komabt and their finishers and blood, now games of fighting games like that have finishers and MK like elements. Buisnesses tend to aim for what is hot at the moment I bet it COX was in WoW's place, there would be a bunch of COX clones running around, even though some say that WoW was initially an Everquest clone, but they switched the buisness of MMO up so much with their huge numbers that most people forget that and now anything after tryign to get that pie is a WoW clone. I think in another ten or twenty years, another game will rise and games after that will be called it's clone. It might be a WoW clone that get it right and beat WoW at it' own game or when WoW run out of steam, or something totally innovative and new. Hell, it might even be another COX like game with a few tweaks and people flock. Then us old folk will sit back and say, that COX was truely ahead of it's time and a mere victim of being ahead of it's time before the game market was truely ready for it.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Right.


This seems to happen in just about every market from food to drinks to cloths to hair products to cars to houses even communication.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

But every so often somebody comes up with a new twist that ignites the masses. Both WoW and CoH were developed in the shadow of Evercrack and UO, through their existing universe, company reputation as well as refinement of the EQ model took off. Same could be said with the Harry Potter novels, upscale fast food businesses like Five Guys or Chipotle Grill, smartphones and tablets. Something existed that was similar beforehand but then someone tweaks it just right and BAM, it blows up huge. And then everyone tries to copy it.

Welcome to the world and how it works.

yep.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Just trying to re-rail the thread while railing against the "modern" trends in MMOs.

While WoW is still kicking I think it's folly to do a WoW clone *and* expect WoW numbers. Actually, it's folly to expect WoW numbers for anything that isn't WoW until the one true WoW-killer draws the sword from the stone and goes all vorpal on Go'el.

Whatever it is I hope it engages better than D3.

Did the AP, bought a new computer for D3, got D3 installed on the shiny new laptop and within two weeks couldn't bring myself to open D3 anymore. I'm actually glad I did the AP instead of paying for it on top of my subscription as I really never stopped playing WoW for any length of time I would've even thought of unsubbing for.

I would believe the answer to be yes.

Torchlight is the real Diablo 3 anyway...

From DAOC: Many of the combat mechanics are similar.
DAOC had a PVP model of defending a frontier, with capturable forts. WoW does much the same thing with some of their pvp maps, although there are limits on the number of participants. DAOC, by the time I had left was very much ruled by gear, although it didnt start out that way.

From CoH, they stole the concept of badges and called them achievements.

I find many MMOs have gotten away from the equipment defines appearance now a days. Whether it be through changing the look of the gear or just not having the gear have stats, but they all seem to be moving away from "look will tell you the stats"

Or perhaps more accurately, how the world fails.

Even if WoW does fizzle out, I have serious doubts that whatever takes its place won't be WoW 2. Blizzard holds all the keys to the market already and I don't really see any way they can lose it, aside from an army of morons slipping in and taking over the company (which is also ridiculously unlikely).

I have to wonder though if it was really all about what did or didn't go right with WoW. Or is it truly an anomaly? In the examples you cited for the "clone wars", there's a very odd thing that makes WoW unique. In all other cases, the ones I can think of, the "clones" were able to get a much bigger piece of the pie compared to the IP that started it all. Mario was king, but Sonic and later on, Crash Bandicoot, raked in plenty of dough; statistically a much larger percentage than anyone has been able to get from the MMO pie. MMO's seem to be particularly unique in that way. In any other game genre, or form of entertainment media, I can't think of a time where one company has held a borderline monopoly for so long.

The anomaly element I was referring to, is just one of those "ghost in the machine" types of things. Moments in complex systems where all the conditions are right and the laws of physics seem to momentarily bend.

There's an old campy film called Phantom of the Paradise. Most people have never heard of it. It had an international release but was a total flop. Except, for some bizarre reason, in Winnipeg, Canada. And it's not specifically a canadian thing. In all other provinces, it did so poorly, it only ran for a week. In Winnipeg, it sold out in Winnipeg for 4 months straight. Nobody knows why or how this happened, including the people who were living there at the time. It's just one of those things. Maybe not the best example since it was a local phenomenon instead of a multinational one, but I think it certainly proves the point that things are more random than anyone wants to think. While bad decisions can certainly affect your chances at success, hard work doesn't actually get you anything, in spite of what most of those who "made it" will tell you. All hard work does is buy you a really expensive lottery ticket. After that it's all about hoping luck will shine out your ***.

yeah.


I know plenty of hard working people try everything in their power to succeed but still come up short compared to people that sat around their whole life not doing much and got lucky when someone just happen to cross their path and hand them a big opportunity, an opportunity many hard working people aim for but never get.

Blizzard just happen to have got a good hand and played their cards right now it's to the point where unless blizzard say so, not many are going to get a significant piece of that pastry.

Kind of like operating systems for computers. Apple basically had to sue usuing monopoly laws to loosen Microsoft's grip. While anyone else, good luck trying to get in.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

It's better to crash and burn by copying something popular, than to crash and burn by trying something new, I guess. As one of my friends put it, "if I wanted to play WoW, I'd be playing WoW".

In the industry's defence, the trend does seem to finally be shifting, and there's been a couple of recent games that actually went out of their way to be not-WoW. Like GW2 and TSW. So hopefully, in the future, we'll see A) companies daring to try new things. And B) publishers accepting that they are not going to get umpteen million subscribers, whether they blatantly copy WoW or try something different, and plan accordingly. The MMO market just isn't that big, and an MMO isn't a failure just because it has to "settle" for 300,000 players.

Honestly, what kills good games more often than not is players fearing that the game is dying and leaving because they don't want to invest time in an obviously dying game. Players and producers alike really need to stop panicking. I don't recall this knee-jerk panic reaction in the pre-WoW era.